New story: Title: Another Time: Guarding Bella

Veronica Jane Williams
xkhoi@iafrica.com

The seventh installment in my Reincarnation Series: Another Time.

Another Time:
1. The Roman Centurion
2. The Ivy Leaf
3. The Gift
4. The Red Carnation
5. Someone to call Mommy
6. Eleni of Crete (sequel to the Roman Centurion)
7. Guarding Bella*

DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Paramount. That's it. The
story is mine...

DEDICATION: I am dedicating this story to my daughter Caitlin
who badgered me to write something around her favourite Chinese
film, Bodyguard from Beijing.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: The story is very loosely based on said film. I 
changed too many things, to make it a loose adaptation. Consider
the setting Britain in the 90's. Or wherever. 


ANOTHER TIME: GUARDING BELLA

Thomas Latimer Cairncross stood at the wide French doors of the
palatial house, looking down onto the courtyard and the swimming
pool area, looking at the object of his intense ire.

Why, oh why did he agree when his superiors at the government
agency asked him to look after an auburn haired virago? He
must have been slightly mad, or he tippled to much the previous
night, celebrating his latest success, to have said yes in a moment
of weakness.

She was standing at the edge of the pool. Ready to dive in.
He felt an unwilling tug in the region of his heart as he admired
her body, her narrow waist, the two piece swim suit clinging
obscenely to her body.

"What are you staring at!" she called at him, catching him
in the act. "Do you like what you're looking at?" she asked
with a sneer when she dived in, her body straight, head tucked
in, legs long, before she cut the water, with the minimum
of splashing.

Bella Campesi. Girlfriend to his boss' friend. His boss. Who put his 
best man on the job.

Bella Campesi...

**********

"Who the hell is he?" she asked Charles Clayton, boyfriend
extraordinaire.

"He's your bodyguard for the next two weeks, love - "

"What!"

"My love, it's only two weeks - "

"Don't tell me how long. Get him away from here. I don't
need to be guarded. By him!" And she leaped forward and poked
him mightily in the chest. He almost doubled over from the
unexpected winding. Then she laughed.

"I can look after myself - "

"Miss Campesi," he managed, "you need to be under constant twenty
four hour guard."

"As I said," and she advanced on him again, "I can look after
myself."

"May I reiterate," sounding, God, so pedantic, "that two witnesses
to a murder you also witnessed, died in suspicious circumstances,
Miss Campesi. Your safety till the trial is of paramount
importance. Or do you want to go to a safe house?"

"A what?"

"Now Miss Campesi, I've known you for exactly five minutes, but you
are not stupid. You know what a safe house is."

"I don't need any bodyguards! Charles...do something, for heaven's
sake."

"I have done something, love. I got a bodyguard for you."

And with that, he left his firebrand girlfriend with a seething
agent who just wished this assignment was over. And go where he
can take a bullet for some state official, ministers, anything
as long as this brown haired, brown eyed vixen was far from him...

**********

"I have to wire your bedroom, Miss Campesi. And place strategic
cameras, to monitor your movements."

"Even when I sleep?" she warned him as he approached her, her look
clearly saying: "I kill you first."

"Even when you sleep."

"I have no privacy," she wailed. "I'm a prisoner in my own house."

"It's for your own good,"

"I decide what's good for me, Agent Cairncross," she snapped at him.

"You can call me Thomas, you know," he conceded, hating his landed
name.

"I'm Bella."

"I know..." he sighed.

"Now why do I get the feeling you're not happy?"

"Do you expect me to be, Bella? I got pulled off an important
assignment, because *your* boyfriend convinced *my* boss, it would be
a good idea."

Bella sidled up to him, flicked her finger under his chin, and
said:

"You obviously don't think it's a good idea?"

"Oh no, a good idea it is. You're a star witness. It's just not
that I wanted to be here. You hear?"

"Loud and clear. That means I'm firing you. Since we don't need
each other - "

"You're not getting rid of me that quickly." Two more plain clothes
policemen had also been posted to your home. So for the next two
weeks, I'll be breathing down your neck! Got that?"

She almost smacked him, so angry he was. She was, he granted,  
concerned at losing her freedom for two weeks.

"And I have a job! Have you forgotten that!"

He sighed.

"That's already been taken care of. You know it."

Bella screamed her displeasure and unhappiness then. It was not
an attractive ranting, laced as it were, with a string of 
invectives that made him almost blush.

************

Bella Campesi stared morosely out the window of her upstairs
bedroom. She had been angry for more than a week, not simmering down
for a single second. She called Charles whenever she had a run-in
with Thomas. 

"Get rid of him, Charles."

"It's only five more days to go, love."

Oh God, Bella thought. He called her such a prosaic "love",
she almost felt like gagging. He was positively unexciting. In and
out of bed. But, he lent class. Stability. He loved her.

"Fine, five days."

Then she turned her attention to Thomas Latimer Cairncross, sitting
in one of the chairs, the house in view of him, with his little
gadgets with which he could see every part, every room of the house.

She loved tripping the alarms, to have him dashing like mad up the
stairs, only to find her, wearing the thinnest of sheer nighties
that left nothing to his imagination. She just loved watching
his discomfiture. But get out of here, she had to. She was becoming 
claustrophobic. 

He looked a little deep in thought, she decided.

She remembered their last altercation.

"Bella, impossible. You can't go alone. Not unless I'm with you."

"I need to get out, alone, you understand?"

"Bella, Bella, why is it everytime you and I talk, I feel I'm
conducting a little war?"

"I have that effect on you?" she asked sweetly.

"Bella - war. Did you know your name is Latin for war?"

"Do I care?"

"I didn't think you would. Somehow Annabelle, or Issabella,
or Clarabelle don't suit you. You are much too warlike."

"Clarabelle! Not a chance!"

"Now Miss Campesi, why don't you join me here at the pool, instead
of moping in your room?"

She had very unwillingly joined him, finding strangely enough, that
she actually enjoyed his company.

Those were the good days.

On a bad day...

************

"Jake, where is Miss Campesi?"

"In her room, I presume, Sir."

"Jake, look here, into this little screen. Do you see Miss Campesi
in her room?"

"No Sir."

"Where do you think she is, Jake?"

"She must have escaped, Sir."

"Exactly, Jake. And she used some old ploys, didn't she?"

"Yes, Sir."

"We'll have to find her, and in double quick time," Thomas Latimer
Cairncross said to his aide.

"Yes Sir!"

The little fool fooled them. But not enough. She ranted enough times
about going to one of the city's biggest malls. She had taken
her red sports car, Ferrari, courtesy gift of boyfriend Charles,
who just had to be out of the country on business in the Far
East.

They raced to the mall, armed.

****************

He hated to see her crying. She had done so much fighting with
him, he couldn't imagine her shedding tears. And tears of shame
they were.

For Bella had been rudely awakened to the harsh realities of
the criminal world. She was unaware that every movement of hers
had been followed, right to the exhibition of exotic flowers
she was gazing at. Jake was injured in the gunfight that followed,
spotting immediately the two suspects as they watched her.

While Jake diverted them, he grabbed Bella round the waist, and
virtually ran with her to their vehicle. The two men went down,
Jake with them. He would file a report later. But he had to
get a shivering Bella home.

He comforted her as best he could, but she was inconsolable. 
Blaming herself. He carried her to her bedroom, and tucked her in 
bed. She looked at him with tear stained eyes.

"I'm sorry, Tom. Really sorry. I'm too much trouble, you know,"
she said, for the first time without wanting to rant at him.
It was a different Thomas she saw now.

"It's alright, Bella. You're safe now. Here. With me."

"I think, Tom, she said softly, I'm beginning to like you."

"That's because I saved your life, Bella."

"It's true, Tom. I - I think I love you."

"Now, Bella, you are already spoken for. You know that."

He touched her brow lightly before he left her in her room. Went
to sit in the spacious lounge downstairs, on the couch, and then
just put his head in his hands.

I can't love her, he thought. She's engaged, for heaven's sake.
To an influential man. She can't love me. He sighed, and walked
about the grounds, his daily routine of guarding Bella.

*****************

Thomas Latimer Cairncross looked where Bella dived into the pool.
She returned again to Bella the warlike viper when he rejected
her advances. The last time, in her room, again in that damned sheer
nightie that seemed to set him on fire. She inched closer to him,
raised her face to kiss him. He could feel her heat, smell
that damned sweet, exotic perfume that crowded his senses. She
pressed herself against him. He exerted superhuman control not to
lose it. For a miniscule moment, he closed his eyes, then opened
them again. Saw her eyes, heavy lidded. Then close. He left the room.
Left her standing there.

And that was when he was entertained to some colourful invective
again, as he walked slowly down the stairs. He just couldn't do it.
She was his assignment. A job, he thought, not without derision.

*************

Bella dived into the pool, angry at making a fool of herself again.
She had lately begged for his advances. Knew she was treading
dangerously. But she was falling for him. Badly. He of the blue-blue
eyes and blonde hair, very fair skin, exhilarated her like no one
had done before. Why, she didn't even miss Charles. Good old
Charles. Solid and dependant. A good match, the gossip columns
read.

He was more like her calm, easy flowing steady stream, with no 
chance that the waters would ever be disturbed. Durability and
dependability. Kind. No surprises.

Whereas Tom... he was a raging current, of which she had to be
constantly aware. He would always keep her on her toes, excite
her, exhilarate her... have passion. She saw it flashed in his
eyes, whenever she provoked him. 

With him she wouldn't mind if they were dirt poor, there would
be passion. Charles, dear soul, had no passion. She's never
reached the heights with him in bed. She sighed. She longed for
that.

She was still sitting on the edge, drying her hair, when several
thing happened at once. She saw Tom diving towards her, arm
round her waist, pushing her back in the pool, at the same time
his already drawn gun pointed at her assailant, bringing him
down. She heard several gunshots in the next few seconds, having
gone underwater and coming up again. She watched as the figures
of Jake and Anthony had run about, pointing their guns and shooting.

The everything went quiet. She got out of the pool. Look on the
ground a metre away from her. Then she screamed and screamed
and screamed.

For Tom was lying there, in a pool of blood.

*******************

Charles entered the hospital room and saw Bella with the patient,
who was still unconscious. She had been lying with her head next
to his side, his hand in hers, sleeping. He touched her, and
when she woke with a start, looked at him. Her eyes were hollow.
He had already heard from the other guards how extreme Bella's
distress was.

He looked at her now, as she looked at Tom.

She never looked at me like that.

She never held my hand like that in public.

She never cried.

She cried. Now.

Her hand reached out to the patient, touching his cheek, with
so much tenderness, it hurt to see her like that.

Charles considered himself a man of principle and dignity. He knew
when to give in gracefully. He loved Bella. But Bella loved Tom.
He cared too much to see Bella happy. He wanted her to be happy.
With him, she was never going to be happy and scale unimaginable
heights. With him, she was going to exist. As a figure in a glass
cage. On a pedestal he would worship her. It was for him
enough to admire her beauty. Nothing more, really. 

She deserved more.

Charles Cunningham Clayton knew in those moments, looking at his
fiancée, what he had to do.

He was, after all, a man of his word.

****************

He was sitting on the wide patio at the back of their family home
The lawns stretched far. One of the few landed families with land.
Undulating little rises, which ended with a lake.

He had dreamed of her often. In the past two months since his
release from hospital, she had never been out of his thoughts.
He imagined she had been there at the hospital, talking to him.
How he wanted it to be her. But she was not his. She was probably
married now. It's what she said when they had that last sparring
match. When he rejected her advances. Knowing her to belong to
someone else. How could he hope? He could dream. But hope?

She belonged to Charles Clayton. Someone who  cherished her, 
worshipped her. Like he did. Like he does. His heart gave a lurch 
as he thought of the times she smiled at him. The few times they 
played chess. And conducted conversation without fighting. He felt 
a sting in his eyes. He missed her. He missed her so badly. He loved
her so much, it was worse that the pain he endured in hospital.
There was a constant ache in his heart. An unceasing yearning. 
He looked down again at the book in his hand. A book he was trying
to read. But couldn't. He sighed, and stared again across the lawns,
at the lake, watching from far, not really seeing, the ducks.

*************

Emeline Elizabeth Cairncross stood at the wide window of her
dining room, which faced the back of the house, overlooking the
lawns, and looked out at the patio, where her son was sitting, a
blanket over him. He was still recuperating, and although he had
been on the critical list for a week, he was thankfully now almost
recovered. Of that she and her husband could only thank God.

She heard that the lady he guarded had testified the day after the
shooting, the perpetrators of the crimes now serving life sentences.
She had seen her often during the week Tom was in a coma and
wondered at the dedication of someone who was planning to marry
another person.

But looking at Thomas now, she could see he looked...lost, somehow.
He was staring for hours, it seemed, over at the small man made
lake, where the ducks were paddling. A faraway look. A hopeless
look. She had an idea that the lady he protected and whose life
he saved twice, crept deep into his heart. Her son, who never
thought of women as partners he could have a lifetime of happiness
with. Whom he could love. Her son's heart had been ensnared. By a
girl probably married by now.

Sighing, she went into the house, and moved toward the front door
to answer the bell. She looked through the window of the family
room, and saw a girl at the door. She walked quickly to open the
door for her.

Bella stood inside the front door of Thomas' family home. She
looked at the kind woman who beckoned her inside.

"Mrs Cairncross... my name is Bella Campesi..."

"I know, child," Emeline said, seeing the young woman's eyes,
red with unshed tears, unhappy.

"Come with me," she said. "He's at the back."

Bella walked with her through the house, until they reached the
back door, two double multipaned doors, opening on to the lawns.

"There. Go to him, child."

***************

Emeline Cairncross stood again where she had been standing minutes
earlier, looking at the tableau there in front of her. Vividly she
would remember the young woman approaching her son, her son looking
up at her. His hand reaching out to her. Her hand in his. She would 
remember the young woman kneeling next to his chair, and rest her 
head on his lap. Her arms going round his waist. She would remember 
his hand on her head, stroking her hair, his own head thrown back. 
The sun shone on his face. She would remember to her dying day, 
the tears she saw, flowing down his cheeks, how his face lit up 
in a smile.

THE END

*******